I live in Savannah, Georgia. Every day, I hear the tour bus trolley rolling by my house ferrying visitors through a retelling of what this city used to be. I walk my dog through the historic squares and admire the Spanish moss draping the oak trees, sunlight twinkling through the cracks. Everything about this town is quaint.
My neighbors and I meet every evening at five o’clock sharp in the park by the fountain with our dogs. We claim a long stretch of the benches, and we talk about our days, what’s for dinner, what books we’ve been reading, and, lately, about one member’s cancer journey. I am the youngest person there by a solid twenty years, and the most pleasing part of it all, for me at least, is that nobody at that bench knows what a Labubu is. Nor do they have an opinion on the shoe, color, or song of the summer. Nary a thought is shared about the “taste economy.” For one hour a day, I am completely offline, talking to people who seem to be, from all appearances, always offline.
It’s refreshing in ways I couldn’t comprehend at first.
